Lake Isabelle

I said yesterday that I was going to hike to Lake Isabelle today, and I did it! In fact, I hiked about an hour past the lake.

Even though I am headed off to a convention in Florida tomorrow morning, I just had to squeeze in another trip back to the Indian Peaks Wilderness today. It wasn’t a short trip either — one hour from home, six hours on the trail, and one hour back.

But it was worth every minute of it! It was a glorious mostly sunny day. I got there just after 8 and it was cold, about 60 degrees, but it warmed up to the high 70s during the day.

The hike today had everything: water, snow, ice, a glacier, streams, and lakes. Plus mountains, rocks, wild flowers, wild animals (deer and a fox). I hiked past Long Lake and past Lake Isabelle and above the tree line up to about 12,000 feet.

Not many people were on the trail, but I stopped and talked for quite a while with two women who were sun-bathing on a large flat rock next to Lake Isabelle. One of them took several pictures of me without my hat on (since there was no shade there and wearing the hat always puts a shadow on my face when I’m in the sun). Two other women stopped and all five of us talked most enjoyably.

For the first time ever, I filled up the memory stick on my digital camera. Shooting at the highest resolution, it held 77 photos. I am NOT including all of them. Here is a selection: